


Riders on the Storm

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28224294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: Daine didn't set out to befriend a Stormwing, much less what followed. Neither did she plan on almost drowning when the road flooded, or on being rescued by her former enemy... much less what followedthat.
Relationships: Rikash Moonsword/Veralidaine Sarrasri
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Riders on the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastwingedthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/gifts).



For I dance   
And drink & sing:   
Till some blind hand   
Shall brush my wing.

— William Blake, _Songs of Innocence and Experience_

* * *

“They name storms after people where I’m from,” mused Daine.

Rain clattered on Rikash Moonsword’s metallic feathers. He held one wing awkwardly over Daine’s head, shielding her from the worst of the onslaught. He let the rain lash his own face and barely blinked at the deluge. Typical. Even an Immortal who was more bird than man had to prove he was _manly._ She would have teased him for it, but he would probably fold up his wings and let her get soaked.

Worse, he would keep sheltering her, but would stop talking with her.

When, by all the gods, had she developed a liking for a Stormwing’s voice?

“That is absurd.”

Daine started, but Rikash was only responding to her spoken comment. Still, she flushed. “What do you call a storm like this?” she demanded, gesturing at the bent trees and the flooded road far below them.

Rikash responded with a name so vile that Daine gasped with horrified laughter.

“I didn’t think you can even do that without legs,” she managed eventually, striving for a measured tone.

Rikash leered at her. “It’s not the legs, dearie, it’s what’s between them.”

Daine folded her hands primly. “And aren’t you anthropomorphizing the hailstones just a little beyond the realms of belief and good taste?”

Rikash shrugged. Rivulets of water cascaded down his bare shoulders and dripped onto Daine’s neck. She shivered.

“Belief isn’t everything, not where I’m from. We _are_ the stories your people tell to scare little chicks in their nests. And as for taste, well.” Rikash grinned, slow and sly. “Your people ride _out_ the storm. We _ride_ it.”

Something in his voice made Daine set aside the part of her mind that made rational decisions. She shoved Rikash’s wing aside and stood. She was instantly soaked to the skin.

Rikash cursed and looked almost offended, but Daine interrupted before he could complain.

“Show me,” she commanded.

The Stormwing blinked. “What?”

“I want to ride the storm with you.” Daine spoke slowly, deliberately. She stepped closer, toe to toe with his clawed feet. Did she dare? (What a foolish question, one she always asked herself too late.)

She ran her fingers through his hair. It felt like feathers — _real_ feathers, not steel — stiff hollow shafts and fine, silky vanes. Startled, Daine dropped her hand.

Rikash stared at her.

The torrent of water was cool on her hot skin.

For a moment, neither spoke. Then Rikash, never able to be silent for long, shuffled backwards and muttered something as he turned away.

Daine closed the gap between them again. “I couldn’t hear you over the rain,” she lied, giving him the chance to take it back if he wanted.

“I said I’d return the favor if I had hands,” he snapped.

Daine grasped his bare shoulders. A man’s shoulders, muscle and bone, and a man’s chest. Daine ran her fingers along one steel blade of his wings — carefully, gently, so as not to cut herself on the razor’s edge.

There was nothing soft or safe about a Stormwing, or their perch on the mountainside, or the storm itself raging all about them. But even as Daine furiously blinked water out of her eyes and braced herself against the wind, she wanted _more._

She didn’t want to merely stand under the deluge, she wanted to dance in it. She wanted the wind to curve around her limbs, she wanted to be unbound, untethered by such a helpless thing as human feet. She wanted to see the inside of a cloud, not merely its low, rumbling belly. She didn’t want to be some small, trapped thing cowering among the rocks. She wanted to _fly._ A hawk or eagle would be swept away by these winds, but not Rikash.

“Show me how you ride the storm,” she repeated. This time when she reached out to him, she cupped his face. He leaned into her hand and closed his eyes.

Carefully. Gently.

Then Rikash opened his eyes, cocked his head and studied her. For a moment, Daine was acutely aware how her clothes clung to her body. Then Rikash shook his head. “I couldn’t carry you in my talons,” he announced.

“You wouldn’t drop me,” Daine said with surety.

His scathing look made her confidence ebb just a little. “No, rain and metal aren’t slippery at all. I couldn’t possibly drop you or tear your arms out of their sockets if I got caught in an updraft. Are you insane?”

“I could ride you,” blurted Daine before she realized how it would sound.

Rikash gaped at her and then, humiliatingly, hooted with laughter.

Daine crossed her arms and looked away.

“I’d slice you to ribbons,” Rikash pointed out softly. “I’m not one of your birds, Daine.” He almost never called her by name. “I’m not even a sword — I’m all blade, no hilt. There’s nothing to hold onto.”

Daine wondered. She had performed impossible magic before. Through her, the Crone had raised an army of skeletal giants to thunder across the earth that had long ago swallowed their bones. Was there truly no way to make a Stormwing human? Or at least... more flesh and blood, less reek and razor?

 _Silly to even think he would want that_ , she told herself fiercely.

Then, ever practical, she set aside her wonderings and imaginings and longings. Set aside the need to fly and fall and feel.

 _Nothing to hold onto? I’ll show you, Rikash Moonsword_. She would hold onto this moment, just as they were. Perched on a cliff, drenched and shivering and afraid to touch each other for so many reasons.

(Well. Perhaps she wasn’t always practical after all. But no one ever did the impossible by being practical _all_ the time.)

While Daine gathered her thoughts, Rikash absently flexed his talons and scraped little grooves in the rock. Little ridges to mark their passing here. A thousand years from now, when _her_ bones had long since been swallowed by the earth, Rikash would still be riding the storms. Perhaps some distant day he would land on this ledge and feel these same grooves in the rock and remember her.

Carefully, gently, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned her forehead against his.

Too startled to pull back, or maybe too wary of hurting her, Rikash merely stared.

“Then tell me,” Daine urged. “Tell me what it feels like to ride a storm.”

Rikash exhaled softly, and for a wonder she didn’t even notice his breath. He craned his neck, and nuzzled her hair with his nose, and pressed his cheek to hers.

“It feels like this,” he admitted.

In the morning, everything would be still. The animals would emerge from their hidey-holes, the flattened grasses would slowly straighten, the snapped branches would be carried away by enterprising birds and nesting squirrels, the raging waters of the river below would recede and reveal the road once more. Where Daine had been traveling alone and on foot. Where she would have drowned if Rikash had not spiraled out of the sky to spirit her away to safety.

Relative safety.

She kissed his closed eyelids and leaned against the solid warmth of his chest.

“Tell me more.”


End file.
